Henry James, The Turn of the Screw - Topics in British Culture and Identity - UIowa Wiki Topics in British Culture and Identity Go to start of metadata Introduction A man named Douglas invites selected guests at a party to listen to a ghost story. He sends for a manuscript, written by his sister’s governess. He explains the governess answered an ad for the position, and she became attracted to the rich, handsome employer. The employer was seeking for someone to watch his orphaned niece, Flora, and nephew, Miles. He insists she not bother him with the troubles of the house, and she agrees. After arriving at Bly, the country estate of her employer, the governess grows fond of Flora for her beauty. Soon, she receives a letter from her employer explaining that Miles is returning from school, being expelled for something his headmaster will not describe, and the reader never learns what the act was. However, after the young lady meets Miles, she is almost sure there had to have been a mistake, because Miles appears very innocent, pure, and handsome. One evening during a walk around the grounds, the governess sees a man on a tower of the building, but he turns and walks away.

After a second vision of the figure, she describes her vision to Mrs. Grose, the housekeeper. As the governess describes the man, Mrs. Grose is shocked: it is Peter Quint, the former, deceased valet of their employer. The governess, concerned for the safety of the house and everyone in it, presses the housekeeper for further details about Quint and the former, also deceased governess, Miss Jessel. However, Mrs. Grose does not give much away besides the fact that Miss Jessel had an inappropriate relationship with Quint, and both Quint and Miss Jessel were very close to the children. Throughout the story, the governess perceives several other visions of Quint and Miss Jessel. After other strange incidents, including Miles wanting to appear “bad,” and Flora frequently leaving her bed at night, she comes to believe that the children have a relationship with the ghosts. However, the governess never directly asks the children. After the young lady and the housekeeper discuss the happenings, both the children and Mrs. Grose insist the governess write to her employer to ask him to visit. She refuses, believing the uncle does not care about the children and will think her insane.

After an encounter before church with Miles, who wants to return to school and believes he can make his uncle return for a visit, the governess returns to Bly with the intention of leaving. Upon her arrival, she again sees Miss Jessel, and confronts the ghost, calling her names. Miss Jessel continues to stare at the new governess, but has a look of understanding. She vanishes, and the young woman feels, again, compelled to stay and watch after the house and children. After talking to Mrs. Grose about her vision, insisting the ghost wants Flora, the housekeeper presses the governess to write to their employer; she agrees. The two women discuss Miles and his dismissal from school. When the governess insists it is his wickedness that caused his expulsion, Mrs. Grose defends Miles, exclaiming the relationship between Miles and Quint was not Miles’ fault. The governess then talks to Miles, who again insists on returning to school, and the governess says she did not know of his desire until recently. After schooling the next day, Miles suggests to the governess that she listen to him play the piano.

She is delighted and amused, and after some time passes, she realizes Flora is nowhere to be seen. After searching the house, the governess inquires of Mrs. Grose for help to search the grounds. Mrs. Grose asks about the letter, and the governess leaves it for another servant to deliver. Mrs. Grose then agrees to help the governess, though she does not want to leave Miles alone inside the school room, where the governess is sure Miles and Quint are together. After finding Flora by the lake, the young child inquires of Miles’ location. The governess rebuttals, asking where Miss Jessel is. The governess then says she sees Miss Jessel on the opposite side of the lake. Both Flora and Mrs. Grose are appalled, claiming to see nothing. Mrs. Grose pleads they return to the house. That night, Mrs. Grose wakes the governess, telling her Flora is sick and scared of the governess. The governess forms a plan, insisting Mrs. Grose take Flora to her uncle before Miles and Flora speak to each other again. Mrs. Grose agrees.

It is then discovered the governess's letter, which contained only a request for an interview, was never sent; Miles took it. The next morning, the governess finds out that Miles and Flora ate together before Flora left with Mrs. Grose. When the governess meets with Miles, he questions her about his sister, but she insists on knowing if he took the letter. Suddenly, the governess sees Peter Quint at the window, and embraces Miles, with his back to the ghost. Miles admits he did, and admits he “said things” to classmates he liked. As Miles looks in the direction of the governess’s gaze, he exclaims, “Peter Quint, you devil!” Miles, according to the governess, was dispossessed, and his heart stops. Portrait Dates: April 15, 1843- February 28, 1916 Hometown: Rye, East Sussex, England "Novelist, Citizen of Two Countries, Interpreter of His Generation On Both Sides Of The Sea." Henry James was named for his father, a prominent and wealthy theologian and intellectual. James Sr.

was a follower of Swedenborgian mysticism a belief system devoted to the study of philosophy, theology, and spiritualism. He socialized with prominent writers and philosophers such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry James Thoreau, and Washington Irving. Education was important to Henry James Sr. and his two sons were educated in a variety of schools and by tutors. James would later call this "small vague spasms" of education. The family traveled extensively throughout Europe during James' formidable years, but at 19 James enrolled in Harvard Law School in Boston. By 1864 James had decided to forgo school and become a writer. James began writing short stories, book reviews, and serialized novels and novellas. He moved to Paris for a time, and in 1876 moved to London. After a disappointing foray into the world of theater, culminating in being booed off of a London stage for his dramatic production of "Guy Domville",Hennry moved to a small town in the English country side in 1897, Rye and rented the Lamb House. The house served as inspirational setting for many of his works including The Turn of the Screw. In 1899 James bought the house.

This was his home for the remainder of his life, and served as the backdrop for what is referred to as his 'scenic progression technique' which followed his attempts at Drama. James never married, and never had any children. While he had many friends, there is no evidence that James had any sincere deep attachments. The lack of a romantic interest in his life has led some scholars to believe he may have been a repressed or closeted homosexual. Other scholars feel that the death of a beloved cousin when he was young scarred him from forming such attachments. This cousin, Mary "Minnie" Temple, would serve as the basis for many of James' heroines. Like many other writers at the time, James was intrigued by the paranormal. He had written ghost stories before The Turn of the Screw and his brother served as the President of the Society for Psychical Research from 1984 to 1896, the years just preceding his move to Lamb House and the writing of The Turn of the Screw. In his journal James revealed that the idea for The Turn of the Screw was a half remembered ghost story told to him by Edward White Benson.

The English tradition of telling ghost stories at Christmastime also influenced James' story as can be seen in the frame story to the novel. The Turn of the Screw first appeared in Collier's Weekly in 12 installments 1898, but it wasn't until after World War ﻿I that anyone questioned the reliability of the narrator. Edmund Wilson published a 1934 essay with his revised view of the novel. In 1904 James traveled back to his homeland, America on a cross-country lecture tour. The trip inspired him to write his book of essays, published in 1907 as The American Scene. Having spent much of his life in England, James was unhappy with America's reluctance to become involved in World War I. The expatriate died before he could see the United State's help turn the tide of the war. Instead it influenced him to become a British citizen the year before he died. James was bestowed many awards late in his life. In 1911 he received an honorary degree from Harvard and one from Oxford followed in 1912. James was ill for much of the penultimate year of his life. He suffered a stroke and his health declined steadily for months.

His friends petitioned King George V to issue Henry the Order of Merit, which the King did on January 1st, 1916. Henry James died in London on February 28, 1916 and his ashes were interred in Cambridge Massachusetts. By the end of his 51 year long career, James had written 20 novels, 112 short stories, 12 plays, and a great deal of other miscellaneous literary work. His headstone reads: "Novelist, Citizen of Two Countries, Interpreter of His Generation On Both Sides Of The Sea." Character List The Governess - Although never given a ‘proper’ name, the Governess is the narrator of this ghost story, and is described as “young, untried, and nervous”(150). Her story starts on the way to Bly, where she meets the two children she is to teach. She is immediately taken with the children, but soon she begins to see apparitions, or ghosts, around the estate. However, she is the only character to admit to seeing these ghosts, and her reliability as a narrator is questionable. Mrs. Grose - The illiterate housekeeper at Bly.

She cares deeply for the two children, and is a major source of knowledge for the estate’s background. She relates information to the Governess, identifying her descriptions of the ghosts as past employees. She is fairly skeptical of the apparitions. Miles - The ten-year-old boy who returns to Bly after being expelled from school for some unknown act. He is described as being “incredibly beautiful”(161), and is seen as angelic to the Governess. It is hinted that Peter Quint may have molested Miles, as he was “much to free”(177) with Miles. He also tries to prove that he can be bad to the Governess. Flora - Miles’s eight year old sister, who is described as “too charming”(152). She is also incredibly well-behaved. The Governess believes that Flora can see the ghost of Ms. Jessel, but Flora never confirms. The Uncle - Flora and Miles’s uncle who is in charge of the children. He does not live at Bly, and never contacts the children.

He is described as “splendid”(151), and one of his agreements with the Governess is that she will not contact him. The Ghosts Peter Quint- Peter is the first ghost that the Governess sees. He is a former valet, who died after a “fatal slip”(178) with a wound on his head. From Mrs. Grose, we learn that he “did what he wished”(185) with everyone, including the former governess, Ms. Jessel. The (current) Governess believes that Peter is trying to get to Miles. Ms. Jessel - The former governess. She is described as beautiful and infamous (184), and the Governess sees her clad in black. Mrs. Grose hints that Ms. Jessel and Peter Quint were “too free”(177) with each other. From the way Mrs. Grose describes her departure from Bly, it is hinted that she was pregnant. It is never said exactly what she died of. The Turn of the Screw is a framework story, and although these are the main characters of the story, they are not the only ones.

The story begins with many guests, some given names and some anonymous, all telling ghosts stories. The teller of the Governess’s tale is a man named Douglas. Topics for Discussion Interpretations of The Turn of The Screw In Edmund Wilson's famous 1934 essay, "The Ambiguity of Henry James," Wilson makes the claim that the ghosts, seen by the governess are not ghosts, but hallucinations brought on by her sexual repression and hysteria. Wilson uses three key factors in making his argument: the internal evidence from the text, James' statements from the Preface to Volume 12 of the New York Edition, and James' decision to include the novella with The Aspern Papers, The Liar, and The Two Faces. Wilson's interpretation relied heavily on Freudian symbology to point to the governesses nervosa, and the sexualization of the children by the governess. Wilson's claims about the novel fueled a bitter debate between Apparitionists and Non-Apparationists. Wilson was not the first person to make these claims, but his were the most well-known and when detractors of the non-apparitionist theory argued against it, they appealed directly to Wilson.

Many of his contemporaries drew on Shakespeare, putting The Turn of the Screw into the long literary tradition of ghosts visible to some and invisible to others, most notably Hamlet, Macbeth, and Julius Ceasar. They also criticized his heavy Freudian reading of the novel. Some critics of Wilson also used the theory that because the ghosts also seemed to frighten the children, they must be real. It is important to note the gap in time between the publication of The Turn of the Screw and Wilson's claims about the novel. It had been a long held belief that this was a ghost story, rather than a tale exploring Victorian sexuality, which is one of many reasons that Wilson's claims were met with such anger and disbelief. Madness vs. The Supernatural In “The Turn of the Screw” The Governess’ apparent sighting of multiple ghosts creates a huge question. Is the Governess actually seeing ghosts or is her mind fabricating these images together because she’s crazy. For the vast majority of the story the only person that seems to react to the ghost’s presences is the governess. She is the only member of the household to actually see the apparitions and because the story is written from her perspective readers have to wonder about the reliability of the narrator.

One thing that makes the story particularly compelling is the fact that she describes Quint in such vivid detail when she had previously never known that he had existed. She was very specific. The man that she saw “has red hair, very red, close-curling, and a pale face, long in shape, with straight good features and little rather queer whiskers that are as red as his hair” (173). On the other hand, it is very clear that the Governess is the only person that actually sees the ghosts and she is the one that assigns the motivation behind their continued presence in the Manor. Even when the children supposedly saw them, they didn’t react in any way. The portion of the story where the governess first sees Governess Jessel is particularly striking because of her interpretation of Flora’s reaction. Flora shows no real reaction to the presence of the ghost, the Governess infers from this lack of reaction that Flora was trying not to draw attention to the ghost’s presence.

The governess “ was determined by a sense that within a minute all spontaneous sounds from her had dropped; and in the second by the circumstance that also within the minute she had, in her play, turned back to the water” (181). The governess immediately came to this conclusion without hesitation. However looked at in another way, it is just as likely that the reason that Flora failed to have an extreme reaction to the presence of the ghost, although the Governess waited for that reaction “nothing came” (181), is because the ghost wasn’t there in the first place and the new Governess’ mind was playing tricks on her as she descended into madness. Mrs. Grose & Class in The Turn Of The Screw There are many times where the issue of class is presented in The Turn of the Screw. The difference in class between The Governess and Mrs. Grose is apparent. Mrs. Grose, the illiterate housekeeper of Bly, is never presented as a ‘serious’ character, and she never reveals if she has truly seen, or believes in, the ghosts. The Governess, although she pays attention to Mrs. Grose, does not take her seriously due to these class distinctions.

The Governess is seen interrupting Mrs. Grose many times, simply assuming that Mrs. Grose’s opinions and thoughts mimic her own. As a member of the lower class, Henry James makes it clear that Mrs. Grose’s opinions do not matter. In addition to Mrs. Grose, class distinction is also portrayed through the servants that live at Bly. James mentions throughout the novel that there are many servants in the house, but they very rarely appear. The reader never hears from any of the servants, and does not know their opinions and views on the ghosts, which adds to the unreliability of the Governess. Is Douglas Miles? There is some speculation about who the narrator is that introduces The Turn of the Screw. The man introducing the story is known only by the last name of, Douglas and when he describes the Governess who will later gain narrative control of the story he says “she was ten years older than I. She was my sister’s governess and I found her at home on my coming down the second summer. I was much there that year” (146-147). This statement means that it is impossible to believe that Douglas is anyone except for an adult Miles.

Readers are never given the first name of Douglas, and they are never given the last name of Miles. The similarities between the two characters are striking. The trauma that the Governess underwent caring for Miles and Flora makes it unlikely that she would willingly take another job as a governess. That plus the fact that when she went to care for the siblings she was very young, probably ten years older than Miles lends the idea still more credence. Another fact that makes this idea plausible is the fact that the Governess treats him like an adult. In many ways she seems to be sexually attracted to Miles such as in the scene where she “threw myself up on him and in the tenderness of my pity I embraced him” (227). Douglas states that he loved his sister’s governess. The only hiccup in this idea is the fact that Miles’ “his little heart, dispossessed, had stopped” (262). But from the terror that the Governess had gone through because of the appearance of Quint; it is very possible that Miles, instead of dropping dead, had simply fainted in his tracks because she had terrified him witless.

Victorian Literature; Gothic Romance Turn of the Screw was written in 1897, towards the end of the Victorian Era. The Victorian Era was a time of repression for women, as their main roles were to tend to their family and house. Few jobs were considered appropriate for women, with acceptable careers including teachers and governesses, the latter being the main character of Turn of the Screw. An interesting complication in Turn of the Screw is that the governess is very interested in Gothic Romance, and that is the genre of the novel. The young woman fears telling her employer about the complications with the children and potential ghosts because of her reading hobby. Gothic Romance was a very popular genre in the Turn of the Screw. But what is Gothic Romance? Characteristics include being set in a castle, mansion or large estate, often secluded in some way from the outside world; a young, inexperienced woman as the heroine; physical/psychological horrors; overall tones of mystery including ghosts, the supernatural, and terror. Turn of the Screw possesses all of these aspects: the governess is thought to either encounter ghosts or have a psychological problem, and it takes place at Bly, the wonderful but secluded country estate.

Because of this similarity, Turn of the Screw also brings up several interesting discussion points that other Victorian literature does. For example, like Johnathon Harker in Bram Stoker's Dracula, the governess is almost trapped and without contact in a large estate. Also like Dracula, readers must rely on transcripts and descriptions from a first-person narrative. Similar to The Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde, the children, like Dorian Gray, are wrongfully viewed as innocent and pure specifically because of their good looks and outward charm. In general, Turn of the Screw is similar to other Victorian literature because it recognizes the importance of appearance, class, and order in Victorian society. Form is Content “But it's not the first occurrence of its charming kind that I know to have involved a child. If the child gives the effect another turn of the screw, what do you say to two children--?”(145). Henry James’ Turn of the Screw is a monumental piece due to the introduction of creepy children. It is clear from this quote, whether or not readers interpret the governess to be mad or really experiencing supernatural terrors, Flora and Miles are meant to be questionable characters.

Their scheming is apparent throughout the story: Miles constantly does things to purposely disturb the governess, such as wanting to be “bad,” and distracting her from Flora by playing the piano. Flora’s quietness during both occurrences by the lake is unnerving. Flora’s continuous disappearances from both her bed and the house are troubling. Last but not least, Miles’ growing desire to talk back and demand things from the governess was unsettling. “It was the dead silence of our long gaze at such close quarters that gave the whole horror, huge as it was, its only note of the unnatural”(196). It is odd that the only ‘supernatural’ or uncanny aspect of the Governess’s meeting with the ghost of Peter Quint is silence. In most situations, the mere though of a ghost would create an “unnatural feeling,” however the Governess seems to completely ignore the abnormal appearance of a ghost. It is curious that the Governess emphasizes this silence, as she is in a house full of sleeping people in the middle of nowhere. The fact that the house is silent should be obvious and completely normal. This line helps the reader to question the sanity of The Governess, as well as the appearance of the ghost.

“The thing was as human and hideous as a real interview; hideous just because it was human, as human as to have met alone, in the small hours, in a sleeping house, some enemy, some adventurer, some criminal” (196) I am interested in this quote because of the fact that the Governess is dealing with ghosts in a unique way. Although she considers both Quint and Jessel monstrous she doesn’t consider them monsters. What I mean by that is although she believes them to be ghosts she doesn’t think that their personalities, their essence has changed after their deaths. They are still the same people that they were when they died, and they are still pursuing the same purpose. They are the ‘enemy’ only because it is possible for them to go where they please without interference and in that way the children are not safe from them. But even when they were alive the children weren’t safe. So this means that the Governess doesn’t believe that the supernatural is evil. She believes that people are evil and that nothing, not even death, can change that. The Sexualization of Children in The Turn of the Screw Many passages from James' novel lend themselves to a close sexualized reading of the treatment of the children.

Both from Miss Jessel and Peter Quint, and also from the unnamed governess. When the ghost of Miss Jessel first appears on the lake, Flora pays no attention to it. She is instead playing with wooden blocks one which: "...happened to have in it a little hole that had evidently suggested to her the idea of sticking in another fragment..." (55). The governess is noticing Flora playing with a phallic object and possibly reproducing the act of intercourse upon her toys. The governess, witnessing this act remarks that "My apprehension of what she was doing sustained me so that after some seconds I felt I was ready for more" (55). The governess means to say she is ready to look for the apparition, however, the reading of this sentence can also be taken to mean that she was ready for Flora to intimate the sexual acts with her toys for a longer period of time. Mrs. Grose also tells the governess later that Peter Quint did "...what he wished..." (58) with the children and with Miss Jessel. Grouping the children together with Miss Jessel, whom he impregnated, insinuates that what Peter Quint did with all three, was sexual in nature.

However, even after the deaths of Quint and Jessel, the children are not free from sexualization. The governess regularly hugs, touches, and even kisses them. Resources & Links The Turn of the Screw by Henry James - Deurice Garay's Book Reviews Deurice Garay's Book Reviews Books ‎ > ‎ The Turn of the Screw by Henry James Basic Info: The Turn of the Screw by Henry James was published in 1898. It is a Gothic novel that portrays a woman who believes that the two children she is looking after are being influenced by two ghosts. About the Author: Henry James was born on the fifteenth of April in 1843. He grew up with an intellectual father that knew many famous people of the time and also wrote poetry. Although James was born in New York, liked Europe much more. It was in Boston where his literary career started with his friend William Dean Howells. He sold his first work of fiction to Atlantic Monthly in the late 1860s. James felt that, after a few travels to England, felt that his writings best fit in Europe. He lived in England for the rest of his life.

Brief Summary: The story starts in a house with a group of people telling ghost stories. In an attempt to have the best story, a man named Douglas says he has a story from a governess he knew and sends for the manuscript. The manuscript arrives and he reads the governess' story to his companions. The governess arrives at Bly, the place where she has been hired to look after two children by their uncle. The first people she meets at Bly are Mrs. Grose, the housekeeper, and Flora, one of the children that appear sweet and innocent but changes as the story progresses. The governess meets Miles, the other child, when he returns from a school that he was expelled from. The governess has a good time time at Bly until she sees a man on one of the old towers of the house. After this, she sees the ghost again outside the dining room window. After scaring Mrs. Grose, she talks with and finds out that the spirit is Peter Quint, a valet of the master that was close to Miles. The governess becomes worried that the children might see him and she becomes protective.

Soon after, however, she sees another ghost, Miss Jessel, while she is at the lake with Flora. She sees that Flora looked and she starts to suspect that the children might know about the ghosts. This is followed by an event that changes her views on the children. She sees both the apparitions close to the entrance of the house when she gets up one night. She goes back to her room to find Flora out of bed. She finds Flora looking out the window and wonders if Flora saw anything. She falls asleep for awhile and awakens to find Flora still looking out the window. She sneaks out to check on Miles and then sneaks to a different room to see what Flora is looking at and is horrified to see Miles. After this, she has a talk with Miles on their way to church in which he claims his freedom. She goes back to the house horrified by the news and sees Miss Jessel in the schoolroom sitting in her chair. The next day, Flora is missing and Mrs. Grose and the governess go look for her, leaving Miles in the schoolroom.

They find Flora by the lake, where Miss Jessel makes another appearance but only the governess can see her and she frightens Flora. Flora becomes ill after this and is taken away from Bly and the governess. The governess then has a talk with Miles in the dining roomhe reveals why he was expelled from his school and then Quint makes an appearance. This makes the governess excited but Miles looks frantically for and dies in the governess' arms. Explanation of Some Important Quotes: "If the child gives the effect another turn of the screw, what do you say to two children-?"(James 1) This quote basically gives the overall view that having two being haunted would be a lot scarier than one child. This shows a foreshadowing of a story involving children and a theoretical screw that is being turned in way to show suspense. "On the spot there came to me the added shock of a certitude that it was not for me he had come there. He had come for someone else"(James 20) This quote says that she feels that Quint is looking for her but someone else. This is foreshadowing the way she thinks that he is after Miles.

Pure evil – Colm Tóibín on The Turn of the Screw | Books | The Guardian Books Pure evil – Colm Tóibín on The Turn of the Screw Henry James's The Turn of the Screw has inspired novels, an opera and several films - including The Innocents, which Pauline Kael called the best ghost movie she'd ever seen. How did he make such a simple story so chilling? By Colm Tóibín Megs Jenkins (Mrs Grose), Pamela Franklin (Flora) and Deborah Kerr as the governess in The Innocents. Photograph: Allstar Colm Tóibín Saturday 3 June 2006 05.00 EDT First published on Saturday 3 June 2006 05.00 EDT Share on Messenger Close In January 1895, when Henry James was in the depths of depression due to the failure of his play Guy Domville, the Archbishop of Canterbury told him the story that became The Turn of the Screw. James wrote in his notebook: "Note here the ghost story told me at Addington (evening of Thursday 10th), by the Archbishop of Canterbury ... the story of the young children ...

left to the care of servants in an old country house through the death, presumably, of parents. The servants, wicked and depraved, corrupt and deprave the children ... The servants die (the story vague about the way of it) and their apparitions, figures return to haunt the house and children, to whom they seem to beckon ... It is all obscure and imperfect, the picture, the story, but there is a suggestion of strangely gruesome effect in it. The story to be told ... by an outside spectator, observer." James let the story ferment in his mind for more than two-and-a-half years before he set to work on it. For most of his career he was sadly aware that his books would never attract a large audience, but there were times when he directly and openly sought popularity. This was one of them. Through his friend William Dean Howells he had made contact with a new young editor at Collier's Magazine in the United States, to whom he sold the serial rights for his new story. He made The Turn of the Screw as frightening and dramatic as he could because he needed a new audience in America. So frightening, indeed, that he actually frightened himself.

When he came to correct the proofs of the story, which was serialised over 12 issues in 1898, he told his friend Edmund Goose: "When I had finished them I was so frightened that I was afraid to go upstairs to bed." The tale, on publication, caused strong reaction. The New York Tribune called it "one of the most thrilling stories we have ever read", the Outlook called it "distinctly repulsive", the Bookman "cruel and untrue", the Independent "the most hopelessly evil story that we could have read in any literature". The American Monthly Review of Reviews called it "the finest work he has ever done ... a beautiful pearl: something perfect, rounded, calm, unforgettable". Ainlee's Magazine, however, warned its readers in December 1898 that Henry James "is by no means a safe author to give for a Christmas gift". The story has had enormous influence, indirectly, on the structure and tone of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, begun very soon after Conrad read The Turn of the Screw, and on films such as The Others, made in 2001, starring Nicole Kidman.

In 1954, Benjamin Britten's opera based on the story was first produced. In 1971, Marlon Brando starred as the evil Peter Quint in The Nightcomers, a dark prequel to James's story. In 1974, ABC Television in the US made a rather clunky version of the story with Lynn Redgrave as the governess. But it is the 1961 adaptation called The Innocents starring Deborah Kerr - scripted by William Archibald, who wrote the Broadway play of the story, and Truman Capote, with some dialogue by John Mortimer, and just re-released in cinemas - that best catches the psychological eeriness, the claustrophobia and the essential ambiguity of the original story by James. James loved hearing half a story, which was what the Archbishop of Canterbury told him on January 10 1895. He then could fill in the rest. "I wrought it into fantastic fiction," he wrote to AC Benson, the archbishop's son, when the story was finished. To begin with, he framed the story. A man at a country house party sends home for a long-locked-up manuscript to amuse and horrify his companions.

In this manuscript the story of the children - a boy and a girl - and the dead, corrupt haunting servants is recounted in the first person by the new governess arriving at a remote house where the children are unprotected. For even the laziest reader of The Turn of the Screw, the governess's tone appears overwrought and her attitude self-regarding. Soon, however, in the light of what she begins to see and sense, this ceases to matter. There are phrases and scenes in the book written with such skill and care and trickery as to make any reader follow it with a great unease. James was right to be frightened. It is a very frightening story. James told HG Wells that The Turn of the Screw was "essentially a pot-boiler", repeating the phrase 10 days later to another correspondent, calling it "a shameless pot-boiler". The word "pot-boiler" might thus seem a way for James to describe something less than holy, less than worthy, below the high line to which he wanted his art to ascend.

But in a letter to Hendrik Andersen, written eight years later, he uses the word to mean often, as he explains, something "which represents, in the lives of all artists, some of the most beautiful things ever done by them". He was never simple, Henry James. This lack of simplicity is what gives The Turn of the Screw its power. It is, on one level, a deeply and perhaps unconsciously autobiographical story. Because their restless father constantly crossed the Atlantic with them, the James children were natives only of the James family. They had no peer group or set of close friends as they were growing up. They were looked after a great deal by their Aunt Kate. It would not have been hard for Henry James to imagine an adolescent boy with no friends who broke rules - his brother William was like that - or a strangely wilful unprotected girl - his invalid sister Alice, who arrived in England in 1884 to be near him, was also like that. If an aspect of James and his siblings became both Miles and Flora, then a larger part of the author became the governess. Just before he began the story, James signed a lease on Lamb House in Rye, his first house.

He composed the story in London while repairs were being done, imagining with friends and correspondents what it was going to be like to travel alone to live in a house with a history. He was, like his creation, thrilled and frightened at the prospect. By the time he wrote The Turn of the Screw, James had ceased to write in long-hand and begun to dictate his stories and novels to a secretary. His first secretary was a dour Scot called MacAlpine. He told a friend how he had meant "to scare the whole world with that story ... Judge of my dismay when from first to last this iron Scot betrayed not the slightest shade of feeling! I dictated to him sentences that I thought would make him leap from his chair; he short-handed them as though they had been geometry." In the 20th century, the critics, led by Edmund Wilson, got to work on the story with the same cold attitude as the Scottish amanuensis. The ghosts, it was pointed out, were never actually seen by the children or by the housekeeper, but by the governess alone. Thus, it was suggested, the ghosts were aspects of the deep neurosis affecting our hysterical governess.

Rather than a ghost story, The Turn of the Screw was "a study in morbid psychology", Wilson concluded in 1934. The American poet and critic Allen Tate in 1942 supported Wilson: "James knew substantially all that Freud knew before Freud came on the scene." The problem for the Freudian reading of the story is that, while the children do not see the ghosts, the reader does. James invoked the evil and haunting presence of Peter Quint and Miss Jessel with consummate zeal and energy. Thus he managed to have it both ways. The ghosts existed, it is true, only in the mind of the governess; the ghosts, more importantly, also give the reader the creeps. For anyone thinking of making a film of the story, this ambiguity was a godsend. All you needed was a suggestive, vulnerable and sexually repressed lead actress ("I played it as if she were completely sane," Kerr said), a lot of wild music and some special effects as the ghosts peered in windows or stood on the battlements of the remote house. The black-and-white film, directed by Jack Clayton, is quite beautiful.

It, too, is framed at the beginning by the appearance of Kerr's pleading hands and her face, wonderfully lit, filmed from the side as she insists, rather too emphatically for comfort, that she loves the children and only wants to care for them. The spooky atmosphere of the house is re-created with great subtlety, with no cheap shock tactics or easy effects. Megs Jenkins plays the deeply stupid housekeeper Mrs Grose as conscientious and kind-hearted and knowing her place. Slowly, as the camera moves from wide scenes of faded opulence to tiny and frightening objects, Grose's expression becomes permanently worried and bewildered; she unwillingly reveals that the two dead servants were less than innocent. While in the Broadway play the children see the ghosts and in Britten's opera Miles and Flora sing to them, here their innocence is ambiguously preserved. They do not see what appears so dreadful and appalling to their overwrought governess. But they are not all sweetness and light either. The sense that they have been corrupted, or that there is an extraordinary bond between them, is carefully dramatised. In James's story, there is no explanation given for Miles's expulsion from school.

In the 1974 TV version, he is naughty and knowing, and tortures animals; he is a 14-year-old boy who flirts with his governess, kissing her in one bedroom scene. In the story, when the governess comes to his bedroom, Miles blows her candle out. (This is repeated in Britten's opera: "Twas I who blew it, who blew it, dear") And in The Innocents, even though Miles, played by Martin Stephens, looks like a nine-year-old, he is not beyond coming on to his governess, his kisses seeming deliberate and sexual rather than innocent and sweet. This causes the governess to believe even more that the children have been corrupted, as she makes mad plans to send Flora to her uncle, played with an amused camp glint in his eye by Michael Redgrave. She wants to stay with Miles to confront the ghastly Quint.

As she becomes more and more hysterical, it is clear why Pauline Kael called The Innocents "the best ghost movie I've ever seen", and it is easy to mourn the fact that Henry James, when he finally took up residence at Lamb House, did not have a DVD player in his drawing room, all the more to frighten himself so that he would, once more, be afraid to go to bed. · The Innocents, directed by Jack Clayton, is at the National Film Theatre, London SE1, until June 15. Box office: 020 7928 3232. Then touring. Colm Tóibín's The Master, a biographical novel about Henry James, is published by Picador The Turn of the Screw by Henry James #BookReview September 23, 2015 12:30 PM The Turn of the Screw by Henry James #BookReview My rating: 4 of 5 stars = I really liked it I thought that in preparation for Halloween I would read some classic 1898 horror.

Study.com Summary “The Turn of the Screw is told from the perspective of a narrator recalling a ghost story he once heard read out loud. The ghost story itself is written from the perspective of the governess to whom the story happened. Hired by a bachelor to take care of his niece and nephew, the governess barely arrives at their country home before she starts seeing ghosts. When she confides in the maid, Mrs. Grose, she learns that the ghosts are former employees of the estate: Peter Quint and Miss Jessel. The governess begins to suspect that her wards, Flora and Miles, can see the ghosts, but the children refuse to acknowledge the sightings. She is afraid for them, especially when the ghosts appear inside the house, but she does not write to their uncle because he asked not to be contacted. More sightings cause the governess to change her mind, but before her letter can be delivered it is stolen. When Flora falls ill, Mrs. Grose takes her away for her health, leaving the governess alone with Miles. He admits that he stole her letter. Then the governess sees Peter Quint out the window. Miles says Peter Quint’s name, which the governess takes as indication that he knows about the ghosts.

The novella ends when Miles looks out the window to see Peter Quint and dies suddenly, as if from fright.” 2830 views Henry James Henry James (1843-1916) I. Biographical note American/British author of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, best-known for novels and novellas of morals. As such, he favors internal, psychological drama; his work is frequently about alienation, his prose frequently serpentine. His earlier work is considered Realist, but in fact throughout his long career he maintained a strong interest in a variety of artistic effects and movements. II. International Theme: the meeting of America and Europe, American innocence in contact and contrast with European decadence and the moral and psychological complications arising therefrom.

The American (1877) Daisy Miller (1879) (to read to book, please go to Washington Square (1880) The Portrait of a Lady (1881) (to read to book, please go to The Real Thing (1892) (to read to book, please go to Turn of the Screw (1898) (to read to book, please go to The Beast in the Jungle (1903) The Jolly Corner (1908) The Wings of the Dove The Golden Bowl II. Point of View ( The Turn of the Screw as an example) Henry James called point of view 'a central intelligence.' It's how we tell a story from inside a character's head, with their thoughts, emotions, actions. Since fiction writers need to make their writing convincing, we try to write inside a character's viewpoint to make the story seem real. A central viewpoint makes the story lifelike -- like we're experiencing someone's life, not a bunch of marks on a page. Short stories almost always are told from a single viewpoint. Sometimes there are multiple viewpoints -- more than one character telling the story. An example would be Bonfire of the Vanities.

Generally in fiction, one viewpoint must dominate, but big, epic stories often have more than one viewpoint. Beginning writers often choose to tell a story from only one viewpoint, because it's easiest." The first scene in The Turn of the Screw is a fireside in the country where a mixed group of friends and acquaintances are telling ghost stories. The first-person narrator prevails on another man, named Douglas, to read a manuscript left to him by his sister governess, to whom he was very close, and who left him the manuscript upon her death. The first person now shifts to the governess, since Douglas is reading her account of the experience aloud. She was hired by a handsome and seductive young man to take care of his nephew and niece, whose parents died in India. He offers her a very generous amount of money, asks her to go live at his country estate in Bly, and says the main condition of the job is that she never write to him of her difficulties of any news of the children, because above all he doesn锟斤拷t want to be troubled. She receives a warm welcome from the housekeeper, Mrs.

Grose, and falls in love with her two charges, Miles and Flora, who are both beautiful, affectionate, precocious, and preternaturally charming. Miles is home from boarding school for the holidays but before he arrives in the coach the governess receives a letter from his headmaster stating that he has been expelled. She does not ask him or Miles why, but instead keeps Miles at Bly for the summer, teaching him along with his little sister. Several weeks later, she begins to see strange chilling apparitions. She describes them to Mrs. Grose, who explains that they strongly resemble the former governess and the master's former valet , both now dead. Mrs. Grose also mentions that these two, Miss Jessel and Peter Quint, were infamous together and under close questioning ambiguously insinuates that Miss Jessel died of a miscarriage or faulty abortion when she left Bly for a short holiday. The apparitions come infrequently, but always in high places or across bodies of water, as if tempting the children into dangerous places. The governess begins to worry that the children see the ghosts, and that they \have been corrupted somehow.

She fears they collude together to hide their familiarity with the evil ghosts from her, and there is a strange incident when Miles wanders outside in the middle of the night as Flora watches, and then later claims that he was just being bad to show the governess that he could be bad if he wanted to. The governess is afraid to say anything directly to the children, but watches over them like a hawk. She is also vaguely in love with her employer, and wants to heroically protect the children without saying a word to him. However, Miles begins to rebel against her care of him, and asks to be sent back to school so that he can be around other little boys. The next day Flora disappears while the governess is distracted by listening to Miles play the piano. She rushes out to find her with Mrs. Grose, and locate Flora at the lake where the ghost of Miss Jessel had previously appeared. The governess asks Flora to admit that she is seeing the ghost, and Flora denies everything and becomes so upset that she soon develops a fever and a violent fear of seeing the governess again. The governess is afraid everything is lost, sends Flora to London with Mrs.

Grose before Miles can talk to her, and resolves to save Miles on her own. She asks him why he was expelled. He begins to sweat and eventually says it was for saying things to other boys that he liked. He also admits to stealing a letter that the governess had finally decided to send to his uncle. During their talk, Quint's ghost appears to the governess, but Miles can锟斤拷t see it. He frantically asks the governess where it is, then utters a despairing cry and his heart stops beating as she holds him very tightly in her arms. The Turn of the Screw by Henry James - Read on Glose Buy this book for $4.99 The Turn of the Screw by Henry James · HarperCollins Canada A young governess turns up at a country estate in Essex to care for Miles and Flora, two young orphans left in care of their absentee uncle. Soon after her tenure begins, the governess begins to see strangers walking the grounds, and interacting with the siblings in odd and disturbing ways. The governess begins to feel they are not wholly human—but rather are ghosts haunting Miles and Flora, and their influence upon the children has tragic consequences.

First published in 1898, Henry James’s sinister story of the psychological and physical effects of the malevolent figures has been adapted for film countless times, most notably as the basis for The Innocents (1961). It also served as inspiration for Alejandro Amenábar’s spectacularly eerie 2001 film The Others, starring Nicole Kidman, Christopher Eccelston, and Fionnula Flanagan. HarperPerennialClassics brings great works of literature to life in digital format, upholding the highest standards in ebook production and celebrating reading in all its forms. Look for more titles in the HarperPerennial Classics collection to build your digital library. You read it? Grade it! ★

Question: Which 1898 Henry James novel features children named Miles and Flora?
Answer: THE TURN OF THE SCREW